The agency, with a $1 million budget, serves Clay County and four other counties.

Officials are scrambling after the leaders of the bankrupt anti-poverty agency voted to dissolve it.

Multi-CAP's board of directors agreed last month to turn over to the state the agency's only remaining funding source, an $800,000 federal block grant.

The board decided it was unlikely that the agency could emerge from Chapter Eleven bankruptcy.

Program director Arley Johnson says Multi-CAP will be gone by the first of the year and either another corporation will take it over or a new corporation will be established.

Multi-CAP filed for bankruptcy in 2001 after its former director, Paul Skaff, misused agency money, pleading guilty to one state charge of embezzlement and a federal charge of misuse of federal funds.

A public hearing is scheduled for November 20th in Charleston to discuss what should be done to continue the agency's services.